30 American athletes to watch at the 2024 Paris Olympics

1. Simone Biles
Artistic Gymnastics

There is no athlete at the Olympics this year who is bringing more international viewers to their TVs, tablets, cell phones, and any other screen than Simone Biles. She is a superstar who is bigger than her sport, but that also makes her incredibly important for her sport. Biles may be the best athlete we’ve ever seen. What she can do in artistic gymnastics would be considered impossible if you didn’t see it with your very eyes. 

Biles has won 23 World Championship gold medals, including four gold medals at the 2023 Championships in Antwerp, Belgium. Of course, her breakout came in 2016 in Rio de Janeiro. She won four gold medals, dominating the floor exercise, the vault, the all-around, and she helped the U.S. win the team gold. She was on the map as this absurd athlete who still had room for growth.

We all know what happened in 2021. She went to Tokyo with all the hype an athlete could have. Then, the twisties hit her. She didn’t know where she was in the air, and it became dangerous to compete. She ended up only competing in the team event, and she helped the U.S. win silver.

This year is different. She’s back and performing at the height of her abilities. And something that hasn’t been brought up is Biles’ age. She’s 27 years old. A woman hasn’t won the all-around at that age or older since the very first all-around in 1952. Heck, someone who wasn’t a teenager hasn’t won since 1972.

Biles is trying to break age norms with a major win, but she has competition both within the Americans and outside (including Brazilian Rebeca Andrade). We can’t wait to see her compete. We never know when it will be the last time.